Published in RED INK: International Journal of Indigenous Literature, Arts, & Humanities (Spring 2017).
The Language of Flowers
a songbird swallows a bud that blooms in its gut
snaking up the esophagus
like my mother swore couldn’t happen
hollowing its stem and
laying petals across the soft pink throat
along the rigid inside of the narrow beak
where out spill pollen and stamen—
each call a blush of dust
every song a fluttering of leaves
Published (sans title) by Nanoism (March 2015).
My Deepest Regrets
I regret little: cutting my sister’s arm on accident; breaking Granny’s stained-glass; running over my neighbor’s cat; denying it all later.
“Mask4Mask” photo series from the Offroad Productions show A Day With(out) Art: Santa Fe. All taken on iPhone using Hipstamatic app.
“Dissolve” limited edition photo series from the Strangers Collective show Long Echo. All unedited iPhone photos.
“Blue Sky Gold” photo series and handmade zines from the Strangers Collective show Narrows. Photography taken on iPhone, most using Hipstamatic app.
“Self-Portraits of the Southwest” photo series from the Strangers Collective show Trouble Vision. All taken on iPhone using Hipstamatic app.
Published in the Amore: Love Poems anthology (Spring 2016).
Under mango green
sheets, down comforter
the tropical colors of
papayas’ and cantaloupes’
inner fruit, your walls pomegranate,
avocado furniture, ceiling a bright plum.
We would slurp mango slices
on piled pillows, legs tangled together,
juices dripping from our wrists,
your soft chin, lips skating
across the heel of a hand,
trailing sticky liquid behind.
I never got to tell you how
those tastes influenced me:
my love of fleshy unknown fruits,
of lush brazen women, the way
I still think of you when I savor
sweet juice creeping down my chin.
